Officials took months to warn residents of a tiny New York village of an impending disaster in their water supply

In
this Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016 photo, Zander Spurr, a fifth grader
at St. Mary's Academy, drinks water from a water bottle that has
been set up in the school in Hoosick Falls, New
York.Mike Groll/AP
Photo

Water contamination in an upstate New York village has brought
officials’ handling of early information under
scrutiny.

Just as
lead in the water in Flint, Michigan took over a year to gain
widespread attention, Hoosick Falls’ battle with a synthetic
contaminant has been quietly unfolding largely outside the public
eye since late 2014. Despite cleanup efforts, recent testing
suggests that the crisis is not over.

The village, with a population of 3,500, has been
battling elevated levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in
the municipal water supply — an
“emerging contaminant” that poses “potential adverse effects
for the environment and human health,” according to the EPA.

The contaminant
has also been linked to a number of diseases, including
kidney and testicular cancer. Michael Hickey, a resident who
brought concerns about PFOA to the village board and mayor, began
researching the link between the chemical and cancer after his
own father died unexpectedly
of kidney cancer.

The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) is now
investigating the possibility of elevated cancer rates in the
village. The state is also investigating the potential
spread of contaminants to nearby towns.

But despite efforts to mitigate the contamination, elevated — in
some cases increased — PFOA levels have still
been detected in recent months and questions remain as
to how so many months were allowed to pass before officials
warned the public against drinking the water.

'We don't know how long you have been drinking contaminated
water'

In late 2014, village officials, tipped off by Hickey, tested
water samples and found that 1 of the the 3 tested had a
concentration of PFOA above the EPA’s provisional guideline of
400 parts per trillion (ppt).

In statements to media and letters to residents, village
officials stressed that the
EPA’s provisional health advisory for PFOA did not set an
“enforceable standard” for safe drinking water levels and that
the town was in compliance with what relevant regulation did
exist.

Some state officials, for their part,
say that they were not made aware of the situation as early
as the village claims. The village website's timeline of
events was still being corrected, according to Hoosick Falls
Mayor David Borge, during the reporting of this story.

In any case, citing the test results, the NYSDOH
told village officials that the PFOA concentration in
Hoosick Falls’ public water “does not constitute an immediate
health hazard.” At the time, the state grouped PFOA with other
"unspecified organic contaminants," which meant that up
to 50,000 ppt was considered acceptable in water, 125 times
the level advised by the EPA.

Nearly a year later, in December 2015, the EPA issued its own
public notice explicitly recommending residents not drink the
water in Hoosick Falls. A letter weeks earlier from the EPA to
Borge cited new June test results obtained by the NYSDOH which
found PFOA levels above 600 ppt in public water.

EPA spokesperson Mary Mears claims that the EPA did not
receive the June test results until the agency reached out to the
NYSDOH in the fall.

Judith Enck, the EPA regional administrator who wrote the
agency's letter to Borge, was only made aware of the Hoosick
Falls situation in October when an attorney representing
concerned citizens reached out to her, the Albany Times Union
reported. At a town meeting, Enck
apologized to residents:

"I'm sorry that we don't know how long you have been drinking
contaminated water," Enck said. "No medical studies or surveys
have been done in Hoosick Falls. Action should be taken to
protect your health."

Hoosick Falls Mayor David Borge claimed that the village was
first informed of the June test results over the phone in August.
He referred Business Insider to NYSDOH officials for details on
the distribution of the department's June results, but state
officials have not yet provided comment to Business Insider.

Borge noted that the EPA’s
November 2015 letter — its
first recommendation against drinking the water —
contradicted the earlier information provided by the NYSDOH.

“Since first learning about this issue in August 2014, officials
from the Village of Hoosick Falls have pursued two goals:
ensuring a clean, safe water supply for our residents and
identifying the source or sources of PFOA in local groundwater so
it can be cleaned up,” Borge said by email.

Hickey is hesitant to place blame on single party —
including Borge — for the delayed recommendation to avoid the
water, citing instead the lack of cooperation between the
various agencies involved. But he did seem shocked at
the NYSDOH's response to the information they were supplied with.

"It seems like [the NYSDOH] just wanted to go the easy way out
and stand behind the maximum of 50,000 ppt," Hickey told Business
Insider. He said that the department seemed not to know what to
do with an unregulated contaminant, but called the initial
response "pure laziness."

Aftermath

Saint-Gobain, a construction materials company, and Honeywell
have been named formally
responsible for the contamination. Water samples near the
Saint-Gobain's Hoosick Falls Plant, though not in the public
water supply, had been shown to have PFOA concentration as high
as 18,000 ppt. Honeywell previously owned the site of the plant.

Saint-Gobain has agreed to fund bottled water until a permanent
replacement is installed. It will also fund filters installed in
the existing water treatment system.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation, moreover,
made an emergency classification of PFOA as a hazardous substance
in order to unlock funding for water filtration systems, free
water sample tests, free blood tests, and additional planning for
a “possible alternate water supply.”

Since the contamination looks to have spread to private wells and
nearby areas, Hickey isn't optimistic about new water
sources: "I think it's probably going to be a longer
process."

In
this Jan. 21, 2016 file photo, the Hoosic River runs through the
village of Hoosick Falls, N.Y.Mike
Groll/AP Photo

In January, the EPA issued a
new statement, indicating that private well owners who have
not tested their water or else found their water to test above
100 ppt—not 400—should stick to bottled water for
drinking and cooking. This time, Mayor Borge and the state health
department have expressed
agreement with the EPA.

“I want to caution residents that the EPA’s recommendation to
refrain from using the municipal water for drinking and cooking
still remains in effect,” Borge was quoted as saying. “It will
likely take another few weeks for NYSDOH to conduct a rigorous
sampling program to ensure the carbon filtration system is
effectively removing PFOA from the water.”